And I Return to Zero
by Elessae
Summary: 11 moments in the love story of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black - spanning Hogwarts, two wars, and into Death, because all returns to zero. Narrated in 11 connected vignettes. Slash. Possibly Post-DH. REMIXED.
1. Theme 10: Stray

**10.** He had been a knight in his time, centuries ago, now long lost and buried in the forgotten room that Time had assigned for all maudlin remembrances, visited only by dust that wouldn't settle, that wanted no part of this slow death. He knew the young ones, those carelessly secure in the bloom of invincible youth, thought him insane – Sir Cadogan who sprinted madly from painting to painting, yelling out challenges and speaking in tongues unintelligible to them. And he would perhaps concede that he was … boisterous, but that energy was an inevitable product of age – it was the only thing that would remind the world outside his gilded frame that this ghost of him, this painted ghost of memory and thought, was nevertheless still a ghost of brilliant hues and daring shades.

It then made sense that he should find his home now in Hogwarts, in this castle of whispers and shouts, in which those who were just beginning to live life were taught their rites, and those who have lived and longed to do so again watched over them. This was how he came to think of himself as a knight-errant of Hogwarts, keeper of secrets that passed through its hallways, that belonged to students who would always walk the corridors with him, long after they have flown this childhood nest. For there were the birds whose wings inevitably took them home, who could never shed the imprints of blood and saliva from their plumes, whose compass would always point true towards the awaiting West. He was never surprised to see them return – as parents welcoming their tittering young home for the vacations; as Order members sweeping noiselessly into the Headmaster's office, late at night when only owls hunted; and the one who returned as a professor, his eyes unreadable, the golden flints in them like molten silvers of glass, the shadows he cast fleeting like blackbirds, like the blackbird of a boy who he was never without in their youth.

Cadogan knew of the crimes that blackbird boy committed – betrayals as Black as his name, and Blacker than Cadogan found it possible to believe of him. For Sirius Black was a knight of the tallest order – valiant in his daring, an unflinching friend to those whom he has pledged his allegiance, and a dangerous enemy to those otherwise. No, Cadogan would never allow himself to believe in the impossible truth – because he remembers a certain late night, when the hallways murmur only with ghosts, and this fearless laughing boy, _strayed_ from his sleeping friends, stifling sobs so violent they broke Cadogan's heart of veneer and acrylic. It was a Sirius Black the waking world could never know – Hogwarts, lit that morning by the unforgiving summer sun, that only saw a foul-mouthed Black, dodging hexes from his younger sibling, scarves of green and gold defiant against flushed skin, and angry against the hurting bruised grey of their eyes, small similarities between these two brothers divided by their blood.

In that night of heavy shadows, Cadogan found that he understood Sirius Black – who loved and wanted and needed with desperate selfishness, and who hurt for it in the dark, exacting punishments from himself as cruel and painful as the lies of hate and anger he spat at his little brother in the morning. Cadogan would take this secret with him to his grave, when his painting ceases to work under charms, when he returns to the inevitable. Yes, Cadogan knew Black's betrayal could only be a lie, because he kept the boy's truth, the fact that Sirius Black loved his friends with the same ferocity with which he loathed himself, his own life easily forfeit for the three who distracted him from himself.

But Life keeps its secrets from Love, because Remus Lupin, now back home in this castle that could no longer hold any magic for him, was a broken man, a _stray_ cut loose from the world that no longer wanted him. Lupin's eyes were blind pools of gold, burnt a dark ocher by the unshed tears he refused to acknowledge, and he could only see the lie before his feet – that the blackbird boy he let into his bed was nothing but dark feathers and blood in the morning, a disappearing love, a trick of the heart, like those in fairy tales of lost wanderers, waiting forests, and whispering magic that he had so loved.

Prehaps he was drawn to tragedy, but Cadogan found himself watching over this silent man, moving into an empty frame directly outside Lupin's offices. Within a week, Cadogan had re-learnt all he had assumed to be true about Lupin – the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, as he had been in his youth, was a polite man who spoke little, but in his face was the map of his soul, a map that spilled glowing dust from its folds, that dared eyes to look but refused to expect that they would. But somebody did look, and read this man for who he was, for the map was a map that was impossibly creased by hands that held fast to his heart, and still did. Within a week, Cadogan realized that Remus Lupin did not hide from the world – it was the world that hid from him.

And then it was easy to tell that Lupin was still mourning his losses, this man who walked so rapidly through the hallways, pursued by ghosts only he could hear and see. Sometimes Cadogan wondered if those ghosts included Lupin as a young man, if Lupin had not, after all, died when James Potter and Peter Pettigrew did. Cadogan had been the one to take the Headmaster's orders to Lupin that evening when Sirius Black had advanced on the Gryffindor Tower with a knife. He had seen Lupin pale, had seen the terrible flicker of hope and loathing in the werewolf's eyes before he raced towards the seventh floor landing, carried by a purpose that grieved Cadogan to even imagine. Remus Lupin was indeed haunted by ghosts, but it was a ghost of flesh and blood, who brought him to his knees late that night, sobbing aloud his name, and brokenly cursing his memory.

It would be weeks before Cadogan would see Lupin again, the moon already in her second cycle of waxing when the two crossed paths. Lupin was wearing sleeves long over his arms, hiding scars from the last full moon, silver moonlight frozen still in his eyes, terrible to behold in their loneliness.

"Are you alright, lad?" Cadogan had asked, on impulse, his voice raspy in the struggle to disguise the pity he felt.

And Lupin had merely smiled, quiet and unspeaking, and continued on his way. Thinking about it in retrospect, Cadogan understood that his question had been impossible to answer, and that Lupin, in his own way, had given him the only answer he could.

And then, on a night completely ordinary, the oldest magic defied its own laws, bringing wolf silver to dance once again in hopelessly black skies. The door to Lupin's offices had been open that night, a small irregularity that should have warned Cadogan of the unexplainable that was soon to be inevitable. But Cadogan was lured by the full moon, by its white fury as it struggled to reign, even as its retainers of dark clouds whispered patience. At sunset, Lupin moved to his open window, watching as the lake pulled the sun towards home, drowning in a pool of blood that flashed golden as the skies prepared for the night. Lupin was unmoving even as darkness fell, his back a straight line, a portrait of deceptive calm but for his tightly clenched fists, the knuckles white as they rested on the window sill. When Lupin finally returned to his desk, Time exploded from the bracket of quiet it had been forced into, passing the next few minutes in the sharp draw of breath and floating parchment, and then Lupin was sprinting past Cadogan's frame. It would be the first time Cadogan had found it impossible to read Lupin, as the werewolf walled himself from the outside world, his heart his own for blind hope, and for the life that would depend on it.

What happened that night would forever be a mystery to Cadogan, for the next morning only brought about Lupin's resignation from the school. The castle was still asleep when Lupin took his farewells, and it was a quiet lull that echoed and echoed in Cadogan's ears. The ex-Professor had paused outside his office, directly before Cadogan's frame, his chocolate eyes impossibly silver in the dawn, sticky with some unspoken emotion as they stared out to the horizon that awaited.

"Where will you go, lad?"

He had asked the question before he could stop himself, concern and alarm evident in every note. But the man who turned to him was a man beautiful in this soft peach of the morning, whose smile was as soft as his words when he murmured them.

"Home."

Life, Cadogan mused as he watched Lupin's back disappear from view, was wickedly reasonable in its madness, creating a home out of hurt and need, for those who have always orbited around each other in universes robbed of gravity. For these were the ones who fell, who have always been falling, as only lovers and strays could.


	2. Theme 9: Falling and Flight

**9.** Of all the possible images to associate Sirius Black with, Remus always thought of locked boxes, box within box within box, a Russian-doll labyrinth of secrets. Everything about Sirius was loud and unspoken at the same time, every word permitted and forbidden, so much so Remus had always felt himself to be learning every of Sirius' secrets with guilty care. He knew things about Sirius that nobody else possibly did, not even James, whom Sirius swore he had never lied to. It was not because he was closer to Sirius, that their shared bed and their lingering kisses left imprints like milky watermarks on both of them, blurring them together whether they wanted it or not. He knew Sirius because he watched him, because he watched in silence while the world roared at his antics and his reckless jokes, because he was careful to look in those ash-grey eyes even as sunlight threaded itself lovingly through dark hair, distracting all thoughts and intentions.

Remus knew, like nobody else did, that Sirius loathed Astronomy lessons, that he feared looking up into the dark skies, into the endless possibilities of universes and constellations. He knew this was the reason for Sirius' uncontrollable energy and mischief during every class, for his stealing textbooks and then laughing as he danced through telescopes and bodies, evading and evasive. Remus knew because Sirius' eyes were always indigo in those moments, blazing and unsmiling, even as his laughter ringed slightly maniacal in the silent night.

Remus became the collector of this secret in a shared moment of unexpected levity in their fumbling second year – under a heavily overcast sky, as James chased Quaffles into the night while his two best friends waited in the stands, quiet and formal, awaiting the rain and the words that would surely come. And then suddenly, Sirius had whooped, uncontained and gleeful, his arms like wings behind his head, taking the world into himself. He had spoken of the beauty of dark nights, of stars veiled, and Remus was quiet, his skin burning with the desire for touch, and the knowledge that he couldn't. He had laughed with Sirius, but he had moved carefully away all the same, feeling as though he was attempting to balance the tide, to learn to breathe even as the crest washed him out to shore. Sirius had shouted, "To hell with inheritances!", bouncing on the balls of his feet, a blackbird in _flight_, defying his name and the stars overhead. And Remus, in that moment of suspended movement and whispering time, had thought the ground not so far away from their stand in the air, had thought that _falling_ would be quick, would be easy, as long as he had that winged boy, that laughing man, with him – with him always.


	3. Theme 8: Afraid

**8.** The second the words left his mouth, he regretted them, wanting to gather them up like ash, chase them through the air where they would have left a powdery trail, a ghostly path back home. But Sirius and him were already home, they had come back to each other, black now bleeding into grey, like still water deep with murky deposits of unspeakable hurt and anger.

"Sirius," he started, struggling to force laughter into his tone, reaching forward for a man whose outline had started to blur, even as his center pulsed with darkness, fierce and silent, and most terrifying of all, expressionless.

"Sirius, don't be silly," he chuckled, his fingers grasping at empty air, his mirth hollow and echoing, "She doesn't like me that way."

Sirius merely leaned against the doorframe, his jaw clenched, his grey eyes challenging, steel spheres of light that blazed like falling stars, defiant even in descent. Remus felt his throat tighten, his heart racing with a fear he did not wish to name, for the process of speaking would give it form, pack its aimless molecules together till it takes shape, till reality bends to its will.

And he did not wish to learn the second language of loss again, not now.

He moved forward until he was directly in front of Sirius, until he could place both hands on Sirius' face, brushing careful fingers over lips, through hair wet from the shower, across the dipping contours of cheekbones.

"Don't sulk," he whispered, thumb tracing slow circles in unshaved stubble, delighting in the sharp pain that met his touch, the essence of the man he loved, the man who could break into a million pieces in his arms.

"I'm not," Sirius muttered, scowling now, even though he did not pull away, his arms reaching around Remus' waist instead, drawing the werewolf closer till they were aligned, hip to hip, heart to pounding heart. "You are," teasing and laughter that burnished ocher eyes with gold, soft and secretive, a sight only he would ever see, a sight that set glee loose in his stomach, light and selfish.

"She likes you, you know. She trips whenever you are in the room."

He knew he was being cruel now, but the cold sharpness of his casual words thrilled him, pleasure sweeter and heavier than the chocolate he had licked off Remus' fingers a week ago, their own celebration, a quiet room away, of Harry's birthday.

"She trips even when I am not in the room, my love."

Word for word, and measure for measure, sticky brown eyes that held his own steadily, ready to meet him at his own game, ready for anything he wanted.

_I know, I know, I know. _

"She is a good girl, you –" he mutters hoarsely like choking, like over-compensation for his unkindness, like pleas for Remus to turn those burning eyes away, eyes that read him to his core, that saw the broken, screaming man that cowered there. Remus kissed him then, hard, tongue and teeth and heat, to incinerate those uncertain words before they could escape, before Sirius' brokenness tore his own being apart, wolfish-gold particles that he imagined would never dissipate, would cling to this hurting man that he loved until death came for them both.

For he had known fear in his time, but it would have no place in this house now, this home of love returned, of darkness he would only too willingly take into his own blood if it meant eternity with Sirius – for he would no longer be afraid.


	4. Theme 7: Dirt

7. When the prisoner in the last cell of the second block started to talk to himself, hoarse murmurs like wracking coughs, the dementors thought he had finally lost his sanity after two years of resistance. Their unseeing eyes could not know he wept as he dug his hands through the soil surrounding his prison, gasped and shuddered as the muddy brown grains fell through his fingers, like sand in an hourglass charting time that would never pass. With shivers of pleasure, they felt his stubborn spirit break, felt the stormy intensity of his soul consume itself whole, like a hurricane with nothing left to destroy but its own eye of calm. They waited for the moment that insanity would claim him, and they knew it was near, in those starless nights when he would remember, when his fierce eyes glazed indigo, mirrors into nothingness.

The man remembered the brush of tentative fingers, white bone against the fine line of ribs; searching lips as they traveled his jugular, teasing and smiling as though the other man already knew the life within belonged to him. The man remembered a conspirational smile, brown hair like a carpet of autumn leaves, offering the gift of _dirt_in a bottle. Earth to keep him grounded, for those nights in the Astronomy tower, when he felt the keen danger of losing himself close at his throat, pressing till blood came. A gift of earth, bottled, to help him hold on to himself, even as he laughed at the ingenuity of the idea, dizzy at the thought of the unspoken concern he thought he saw in those ocher eyes. A gift of dirt to tell him that he is heard, even if he screams under his breath – and earth surrounds him now, shackling him down, absorbing his howls, his litany of anger and regret that could reverberate in and around him, but would never be heard again by that smiling wolf.


	5. Theme 6: Ghosts

**6.** "Get Out."

He could no longer see clearly, the room disappearing into blocks and swatches of swirling colour before his eyes, but he knew Sirius stood at the foot of his bed, the fiercest source of light in his world even now, his audacious brilliance burning tears into Remus' eyes – tears that would not fall, the laws of gravity that would have no sway in the face of his consuming rage.

"Get out," he repeated, his words now beginning to slur, whirlpooling the solemn sterility of the hospital ward into them, whirlpooling their last five years into them, hulls of trust splintered into nothingness in the insanity of this blood moon night.

"Moony –" Of course Sirius was stubborn and unheeding, as he had always been. Teeth biting down on lips so hard they drew blood, not the first on his tongue tonight, but comforting now in their angry heaviness, the tear of flesh distracting him from the pain at hand. He knew Sirius was speaking, but everything was a dull roar now, just as the world was a riot of mad colours, unreasonable hues blending into each other, until Sirius glowed in an impossible halo of crimson and silvers, ephemeral in his beauty. He said the words then, to this beautiful man who made him hurt and made him want to hurt. He chewed the words off with a feral energy that reverberated through the hospital ward, leaving in its wake a pocket of quiet so complete he could hear the sound of Sirius' words die away, the whisper of his eyelashes as they widened, inky petals to bruised irises that bloomed to the moonlight and to unkind words, only to quickly wither as sudden tears forced Sirius to close them. He watched as Sirius turned to leave, and it was only as the door swung lazily shut that he allowed his head to fall back onto the pillows, surrendering to the darkness that took him immediately, his words muted murmurs that continued to echo in the memory of the room, suspended in empty space and unpassing time.

_I never want to see you again. I would never love you again._

* * *

Within a week, The Prank, as a desperately lost Peter took to calling it, was resolved. Remus recovered from his physical injuries sustained that night, and beyond looks of deepest loathing, heard nothing from Snape of the secret of his lycanthropy. Sirius received half a year worth of detentions after hours in Dumbledore's office, but Dumbledore, in his own punishing kindness, did not inform the Blacks of the incident. Instead, James' parents came into school, and much was said between the Potters and this son they already considered their own, that James returned to the Gryffindor tower that night subdued and solemn, leaning instinctively into his adopted brother, his body a protective bracket between Sirius and the world. Remus did not see any of this, but rather, he heard half of it from a stammering Peter, who took the werewolf's silence as an invitation to speak of his ex-lover, and the other half from James, who looked him squarely in the eye but made no excuses for Sirius.

In that first week, he saw nothing of Sirius.

_I never want to see you again._

* * *

One week passed into two months, and autumn's threat of death and endings materialized when winter swept in, icy fingers and life-stealing breaths. The Christmas break then loomed near, marking the first half of a fifth year spent in silence, the successful animagi transformations gone to waste as Padfoot stayed away on subsequent full moon nights, leaving only Prongs and Wormtail to fulfill a promise they have been waiting five years for. On those nights, the wolf reacted angrily to Padfoot's absence, acting on Remus' refusal, and failure, in missing Sirius, and it was all Prongs could do to hold Moony down, as the grey wolf snarled for the feel of the familiar black coat, furious with the human who is keeping the canine away.

Every morning after those full moon nights, Remus woke up alone in the hospital ward, staring out the window at clouds that would immediately take fragmented forms of the one he could hardly bear to think about – clouds that rolled like tumbleweeds, like wheels to the bike Sirius had long coveted; vapor shaped like silken dog ears raised in curiosity; aimless wisps that twisted like Sirius' blindingly scarlet and gold scarf, that which he had defiantly hand-knitted over a holiday back at Grimmauld Place, and have never been separated from since, and that which Remus loved – clumsy stitches, loose ends, and frayed patches included.

_I would never love you again._

It was this scarf that occupied most of Remus' waking thoughts, blood-stained gold that remained sharp even in his frequent painkiller induced hazes, the memory of shared warmth and of breaths rising like fog and mist luminous even in the darkness behind his shut eyes. The scarf was the only thing he had seen of Sirius in the last two months, as his angry words became reality, as Sirius read the truth to his silences and left him to his right to be cruel, taking it upon himself to avoid Remus as he knew the werewolf wanted. Their shared dormitory immediately became home only to three boys, as Sirius returned to his bed only in the deep of night and left before morning could break, like a lover who took his fleeting pleasures and gave nothing back. Sirius' unmade bed, his sheets that Remus imagined still bore his ghostly imprints – an arm thrown out to block the white starlight, the curve of a neck as it pressed deeper into the pillow – were the only evidence that he had even come back to the room the night before. During lessons in increasingly dark rooms as storms rumbled and lurked overhead, Remus watched, out of the corner of his eye, as the red and gold scarf caught the thin light, its ends lifting in the winter gale, weighed down only by curling strands of dark hair. Sirius was quiet during lessons, and the class, as though reacting to this unnatural and uncomfortable peace, was equally muted, listening instead to the shrill cries of the wind as it whistled through the room. As soon as the bells went, Sirius vanished, so much so that no matter how quickly Remus turned to look, in those later days, all he could see was the tail of the scarlet gold scarf as it disappeared out the door, carried by the wind and by hurting love.

_I never want to see you again._

Soon, Remus began to learn to see Sirius, to see the ghost of him, in the moments that they eluded each other – a recently vacated seat at the breakfast table, treacle tart unfinished, a perfect half circle in its heart, glistening where Sirius had bit in; the bathroom tiles newly wet, the scent of mint and dog fur thick in the air, smudges on the mirror where impatient fingers have left their mark. In those moments, during which he always felt he could reach out and touch Sirius, return Sirius to his here and now if only he could just step back in time, Remus comprehended what he stood to lose - what he was already losing as Sirius slowly disappeared from view right before his eyes. In those moments of staring blindly before him, at places where he imagined Sirius' fingers to have rested minutes before, Remus stopped being angry.

* * *

And it was not long before he stopped knowing how to feel altogether, as he fought desperately to replace the comfortable anger with another emotion, and against logic, he wished at times to return to that state of unthinking fury, of missing Sirius even as they sat in the same classroom, unspeaking and unsmiling. This unreasonable desire to run confused Remus, and it was possibly the reason why he did not resist when trouble came looking once again, trouble in the form of another raging Marauder.

"How long is this going to go on?"

A loud thud as James threw his broom on the floor, crossing his arms as he glowered at Remus, his hair messy from his Quidditch practice and his jaw tight with frustration. All around them, Gryffindors paused in their work and play and turned to gawk, the rift between the marauders an unmistakable source of interested gossip within the school. Remus closed his Ancient Runes book slowly, looking up into James' upset face as he struggled to figure out how to react in that moment. He knew this confrontation was long coming – James was dependable that way – for he overheard the Potter arguing with Sirius two nights ago, angry words that were more helpless and pleading than they were livid. Remus knew he should have told James he was no longer angry, but he could not bring himself to the act, because saying the words would make them true, and then he would have to act, when a quiet part of him feared that Sirius was lost to him forever, that he could no longer undo those careless promises he made that night. Now he swallowed, and confessed, each word as true as they were confusing.

"I don't know. _I don't know_. The only thing I know now is what I _want_."

James held his mulish glare only a second longer, before he sighed and dropped into the chair next to Remus, allowing his head to find the table with a painful thwack as he murmured, "And what do you want, Moony?"

_I would never love you again._

* * *

Four hours later, Remus laid awake in his bed, keenly aware of the quiet wakefulness in the room, in James' even breathing as they both contemplated Sirius' empty bed. Outside, snow was beginning to fall, the first snow of winter, whiter than they would be for the rest of the season, except on the last day, on which it always fell thick and fast, regretful goodbyes as spring beckoned towards the waiting earth. But Remus was not thinking of whiteness this night – he was thinking of scarlet like blood, gold like scattered stardust, lonely blackness held up by that scarf, face upturned to the skies as snowflakes caught in careless dark hair and wet lashes, melting into pools behind grey eyes. And then, as though he had meant to do this all along, Remus jumped out of bed, and reached for James' glittering cloak, whispering, "I am borrowing this, Prongs." He was already halfway out the door when he heard James reply, a lone blessing on this dark night.

"Go find what you want, Moony."

* * *

He was out of bed at two in the morning, on a night so cold it would deter any wanderers but the unwavering Filch, whom he ended up having to outrun towards the roof, where the Marauders' Map promised he would find Sirius. It was a night too overcast for stars, a night perfect for the disappearing Black, a night that clearly knew only magic and not reason. He burst onto the roof only minutes before the surprisingly astute Filch, and as he knelt over to catch his own gasping breaths under the cloak, Remus heard the first of echoing footsteps as Filch ascended the stairs. Sirius turned towards the sound almost as soon as the first footfall echoed on the creaky step, and then he laughed, wry but truly amused, entertained by the prospect of oncoming trouble in the careless manner that only he could. Against his will, Remus smiled, reassured by the familiar rightness of the moment – the rightness of the exasperation and fondness that Sirius inspired in him, the rightness of his pulse quickening as Sirius turned, unknowingly, towards him, his dark hair dusted powdery white by the snow, the ridge of his nose pink with cold.

As Filch's footsteps pounded yet nearer to the landing, Remus reached out and pulled Sirius under the cloak with him, his throat tightening as he came face to face with his lover for the first time in two months, Sirius' hand heavy in his own as they both disappeared from the world. And then Filch was on the roof with them, muttering under his breath as he searched hopelessly for what he could not see, and the two marauders were saved from speaking, staring desperately at each other instead, making up for all this time lost. Sirius looked away first, and sagged against Remus, his breaths warm on the werewolf's neck, and speechlessly, Remus reached around him, arms locking around Sirius' waist. He felt a quiet dampness against his cheek, and he knew Sirius was crying, and all he could do was whisper the words he had long known were true, before his own voice failed him.

"I lied. _I lied._ I could never not love you."

* * *

Filch would always remember that night as the night he very nearly caught that no-good Black, who he suspected had been breaking curfew for at least a month. He would always recall that night with vague bitterness, blaming those first snows of winter for his failure – blinding white snow that fell from the heavens and hid _ghosts_ from view, that kept their whispered secrets, that protected the two lovers as their eyes readjusted to the reflected light, as they learnt to see again.


	6. Theme 5: Read

**5.** His legs, as though with a will of their own, shifted restlessly under the blankets, the murmurings of the cotton echoing around the quiet room like muted whispers. The man next to him remained frustratingly still, and silence continued to reign, with the staccato ticking of the wall clock offering solitary and tentative acknowledgement.

He opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again, the name on his lips a weighty presence, compelling him to lick them self-consciously. He tasted salt, warm like tears and tangy like regret, with the bitter bite of blood. Swallowing the words, he turned further into his pillow, his back a harsh line against the white sheets, building a wall against the man next to him.

Hands reached to grasp at the blanket, seeking warmth against a cold that went as deep as their bones, and like blind fingers _reading_ unspoken words, they met. He froze, and so did the one he loved most, loved, but could not trust. The touch of those familiar fingers along his knuckle burned like bright salamanders, glowing in the darkness, knowing and hurting and self-destructive, threatening quick flames. Those fingers closed imploringly over his own, hand pressing against hand, and with his back still to the other man, he blinked back tears, and pulled back his arm.

Silence reigned once again, violently, and he willed the night to deepen, and waited to lose himself in this bed made with lies, with distrust, with desperate love.


	7. Theme 4: Smoke

**Disclaimer:** Nothing here is mine, except what I (stubbornly) choose to read in the subtext.

**4.** The smell had risen from his cauldron, in which his Amortentia bubbled in its last stage, in a shimmering shade of earthy brown shot through with gold, like caramel blended deliberately into peanut butter. Sirius had froze, maps of gooseflesh canvassing pleasure routes down his spine, and for a quick moment, regretted taking James up on this illegal potions exercise. Next to him, said Potter was muttering feverishly under his breath, vaguely intelligible words about pollen and Quidditch pitches and the sharpness of drying ink. Sirius wanted to say something, a crude wisecrack about James' Lily being more likely to sting inquisitive bees rather than allow them the gift of her pollen, but the words remained lodged in his throat, stalled by the serpentine coils that wound itself through his hair, lifting the ends and kissing his neck. It was the scent of smoke, heavy and dusky and insanely attractive to Sirius, who located it immediately as that lazy afternoon in the Gryffindor Tower back in their fourth year.

That afternoon when the marauders had positioned themselves in front of the blazing fire, creatures of habit inhabiting the same territories. Peter spread-eagle on the carpet, inevitable ink stains in smudged lines down his cheek, on which he had rubbed his fist in predictable homework-induced frustration. James sitting Indian-style on the long couch that overlooked the window, pretending to be writing a long overdue letter to his parents when in truth, he was darting furtive glances at a certain redhead. Sirius himself occupying the remaining two thirds of the same couch, head against James' leg, staring up at the ceiling as his feet dangled carelessly over the top of the sofa.

And _Remus_.

Remus in the threadbare armchair facing him and James, reading, reading so deeply and so compulsively he made his seat look like the most regal and comfortable of thrones. Sirius had turned to study the werewolf as a log crackled in the hearth, and he had been seized by the sudden childish desire to walk over to his lover, to remove the book from his hands, to see those liquid brown eyes clear and then resettle on his own face, reading him, reading him instead. His vision had filled with smoke as he watched Remus, and he was soon unable to tell if the smoke was a product of his imagination, or if the fire was blazing too fiercely. He smelt smoke everywhere, felt it press against his cheeks even as he laid on the couch, felt it whisper against his eyelids, tempting him to look away. And Remus had looked up then, and he had caught Sirius, and Sirius did not grin, but continued to follow the edges and shadows across his lover's face. Remus had gazed back, steadily, and the intensity in his eyes had darkened into something fiercer, something Sirius recognized as intimately, possessively his.

And the smoke continued to float in the empty spaces between them, a quiet dance, visible only to searching eyes.

Now, standing over his cauldron in the deserted bathroom, Sirius wondered if the smell had truly left his skin that lazy afternoon, if it had not, like everything related to Remus, found its way under his skin, singing clear with his blood.


	8. Theme 3: Linger

**3.** The day Remus wandered through his apartment, just a few weeks after their graduation from Hogwarts, mumbling confusedly about motorcycle oil and how he cannot understand why the smell _lingers_ so, on his hands, his clothes, his hair, even after he has washed and rewashed them, Sirius had kept his knowing silence, remembering the furtive night in sixth year, when James and him had locked themselves away in the dead of night to brew Amortentia in a silent bathroom, smoke clinging to Sirius like pale ghosts.


	9. Theme 2: Inked

_Sable._

**2a.** Bambi, he calls me, with a wide grin that is all teeth and charm, and when I glare at him, laughs without apology, secure in the knowledge that I will forgive him. He is compulsive about his rock music, stomping around this happily ever after singing at the top of his lungs, thrusting his hips shamelessly and daring us to tell him he does not look every bit like the rock star he knows himself to resemble. My James, always with that feigned annoyance, calls him names – noisy git, tone-deaf wanker, exhibitionistic poof – and then they fall on each other, restored once again to the laughing, wrestling boys they were so many years ago in lives already half-forgotten. James and I have been _here_ for awhile now, awaiting completion, and Sirius' recent arrival had been like the elusive Ptolemy to my husband's deck of chocolate frog cards, a treasure so dear it is meaningless to all but the one who hides the terrible yearning in the quiet of his heart.

Rock music and chocolate frog cards – one would have thought that Death ends all material needs, but not so.

If anything, this state of Otherliness, of promised freedom from wants and desires, has given earthly objects impossible import, stitching together a web of sticky gravity, holding us fast to the world we have only recently vacated. Our souls are essences of ephemeral and fleeting luminosities, casting light in rooms we cannot sleep in, fires that will not dim with age. I like to think I understand this twist in the tale, not because I have long been dead, but because I am a mother even in Death.

The dead linger, and become ghosts, and I remember enough of my muggle childhood to know that I have passed into a wordless whisper, a map of gooseflesh, the very bump in the night that Petunia used to promise to protect me from, her own eyes wide from the terror that her bravado could not quite hide. Now I know that the little girls we were then had nothing to fear – unless Tails, the housecat who tolerated our brand of screaming love with a wary patience, had decided it impossible to leave the warmth of our mother's gentle fingers behind in Death. For it is love that is truly fearsome, that compels Memory to haunt hallways that no longer welcome its presence, no matter how light the tread, how careful the song of each footfall. As a young student in my first year at Hogwarts, I caught a snowflake in my open hand, on the way back to the castle after a grueling lesson of Herbology. I had stopped, alarmed and delighted by the perfection that nestled across the folds of my palm, that five-pointed star that glistened wetly at me, as though it was reading my destiny from the creases drawn messily across my flesh. That snowflake had glowed in the gathering dusk, every intricate swirl perfect, daring me to breathe as it winked at me in all its beauty. A fleeting few seconds before it melted, and it claimed my heart, compelling me to try to catch other snowflakes in my 7 years at school. Harry, for all intents and purposes, is my snowflake now – my sweet boy who melted into the blood under my skin, who continues to call to me even though it has been 15 years now since I last held him in my arms. Love weaves in and out of my essence, clumsily stitching me to the life I no longer have any right to, providing me with the energy to burn brighter and fiercer than the most malicious of spirits. I understand Sirius' refusal to relinquish his rock music – like him, I am incapable of surrendering my centre of gravity, incapable of accepting the separation with the grace of the fallen.

No, Sirius and I are not the most graceful of spirits – unlike James, who has the impossible courage to distract himself with endless musings on Theology, to keep the burn of longing at bay, to let the living be. In Death, I learn what I never had the humility to accept in life – that the Marauders were creations of myth, beautiful beasts not voluntarily of their own making, but of what the outside world wanted to believe of them. And often, as it is with the most cherished of fantasies, those myths make inevitable liars and honest men of the four of them. For one, James is indeed the strongest of the group – perhaps not in the way of the Quidditch hero that he had been worshipped for, but for his resolute will, his clarity of vision when it concerns the smudged charcoal line in a florid painting of right and wrong. My James has the strength to turn from temptation, to set his jaw and turn his back, even when his hurting hazel eyes tell me he longs for nothing more than to intervene, to turn Harry from the dangers that our ghostly vision see all too clearly. Sirius mutters about James' dog vision – his worldview of reality in black and white, but I know those are the moments he loves James fiercest, because those are the moments I cease to regret my short life, for half of it was spent in the company of this beautiful man.

Naturally, there are also those assumptions that are infuriatingly shortsighted. Remus, unlike what the world would like to believe, is not the counter to Sirius' quickness, not the opposite of Sirius' mercurial moods and impulses. Sirius is not the starless night to Remus' perfect noon. It is easy to think of Remus as the eternally patient half of their relationship – not many have seen the flare of fire in his eyes, the bruising butterscotch brown of his glare, a cacophony and din that is tunelessly in time with the sharp perse of Sirius' glower. And Remus, like Sirius and like me, is unlearnt in the art of release.

He wears a coat of _sable_, a coat that he retrieved from the apartment he shared with Sirius a day after my death. A coat that belongs to Sirius, that smells of mint and laugher and petrol, that he eventually wore down with his fists, clenched tightly within the pockets, the tears that he could not cry drying on the high collar. Moony has never once let Padfoot go – not during Azkaban, and certainly not now, not even in Death. In this disregard for the rules of mortality, they are true marauders – cut one, and the other bleeds.

I am Lily Evans, and I have been dead for 15 years. I wait now with my Prongs, and my Padfoot, who is reserving his silence, his wordless smiles and unspeaking laughter, for the man he loves, the one with his borrowed coat of sable, who makes all words unnecessary.

I am Lily Evans, and I wait for completion.

* * *

_Saffron._

**2b.** I asked him last night about his favourite body part, and he had smiled, his sudden sadness warning me to keep my distance. I did not get my answer, but I do not need it. I have always known.

Lately, the color of blood disturbs me. Not the fresh vermilion of blood newly and angrily spilled, but the hue it adopts almost as an afterthought – the copper _saffron _of blood cooled and soon to stain. Many would assume that it is the carnage and mayhem that frightens me, the bite of the war at my heels, that could steal into my home and take my husband and child even before the green of the serpent could lick the flame filled skies. I am an Auror, a fighter on the front line, and now, a mother and a wife. Sometimes, I feel as though I am repeating myself, alternating during long days and even longer nights between a set of emotions – the restlessness of anxiety, the cold of sadness, the fury of the desire to protect. Those are the only emotions I have been able to feel, both on duty and back home, work and play indistinguishable in the madness of the fighting. It is like playing Russian roulette, but with all three cylinders set to automatic.

But it is not nameless Death I see when I arrive at scenes too late, the scent of blood making every breath I take burn through my lungs, as yet another muggle family pay for their crime of lineage with more than just a pound of flesh. It is always the reseda of drying blood that greets me, the smears of saffron that remind me that I have no place in a story that both began and ended without me. Saffron is the color of my exclusion, the color of the loss that I cannot even call my own.

I first saw the color when I was six, and madly in love with James Potter. I did not have a name for that shade of rusty red-brown then, and it did not leave enough of an impression to take hold in my imagination. My hair remained as firmly black as James', and I would have had it just as messy but for my healthy fear of my mother, who could be as imperious as her pure blood family when it came to matters of personal hygiene. Sirius was staying with us for Christmas that year, and he had brought his three friends with him, joking that they were extended appendages of his own body. I had believed him, naïve in my absolute faith in magic, and now, so many years later, I finally understand the gravity in his casual words. The adult Sirius I knew was but a handful of soot and ashes, a man who refused the corporeality of life, whose losses have broken him enough that it will only be too easy for Death to scatter them in a breath. But yet, it was Sirius who taught me about love, who now, from the grave, is still teaching me about the impossible truth of saffron.

I was six that year, and it was a day before Christmas. Sirius had disappeared alone after lunch on the excuse that he needed to do some last minute gift shopping, and it was close to midnight when I finally heard the floorboards in the foyer creak. Convinced that Santa must have come a day earlier to reward me for my outstanding behavior, I had snuck out of bed and down the stairs, breathless with the anticipation that only gifts could inspire. The sitting room was washed in liquid gold that night, the fire in the hearth dancing to a tune only it could hear. Standing just beyond the fireplace, Sirius and his sandy-haired friend looked as though they were burning, their skins glowing ocher, and their hair threaded through with amber. I watched quietly as Remus held Sirius' hand, his fingers tracing a pattern on the inside of Sirius' wrist, soft and hesitant and marveling. My cousin had hissed as Remus brushed shaking fingers against a design of ink, and the vein in his wrist had pulsed with life, causing the tattoo to shimmer against his flesh. When Remus brought Sirius' wrist to his lips, I saw that the skin was stained a copper brown, the blood from the muggle needles bruising as it dried. _Saffron_, and love, and I should have known then that Remus' story had long begun without me.

Two years before, while in Grimmauld's Place during an Order meeting, I caught a glimpse of the tattoo as Sirius drummed his fingers impatiently on the table. It was a symbol of the moon in crescent , a simple design of black _inked _directly beside Sirius' pulse. It puzzled me that Sirius had not chosen a full moon – like all the other Order members, I knew about Remus' lycanthropy, and I also knew about Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail. I ran a search on the muggle Internet later that night, only to learn two truths – one about Sirius, and the other about myself.

The crescent moon is a symbol used in alchemy to represent silver. Sirius had taken Remus' poison into himself, bled it into his own blood to govern his pulse, to claim Remus with the imprint of silver and saffron. Sirius loved Remus – and Remus, in the glow of fire that night, was indeed burning, but for this man he ardently loved in return. I should have known to quit while I was still ahead, but I could not. I am drawn to tragedy, to loss, to stories that do not need a meddling princess.

I am Nymphadora Tonks, and I know my husband's favourite body part, and I know it is not mine.

I am Nymphadora Tonks, and I am destined to lose even before I could begin.


	10. Theme 1: Last

**A/N: Nearly to the end now! I only have Theme #0 left, to _return to zero_. It's been _long_, and tiring, and thank you for reading! **

**

* * *

  
**

"Go to the end with me, Moony," he whispers, "and let's make it _such an end_."

You look into those storm-grey eyes, and you feel yourself want to walk into them and drown, and you see the bold truth in them, and you wonder who could ever deny him anything.

There is no life without him, and you know it, you always had.

"Yes," you whisper, "yes, yes, _yes_."

And then he kisses you, urgent and fierce and taking what is his, and as you feel both your excitement stir, you give in to the red of passion, and you lead him back into bed, and pray that the end will be like this – you locked in his arms, his eyes silver in the dark as he arches above you in pleasure – and you pray that this will be the _last_ thing you see.

A week after he fell from you into the veil, you find yourself crying bitter tears, sitting here in this unmade bed, his hair still caught on your pillow. You find yourself admitting that you were never surprised by the events of that night, that you had known it the second he turned to you at the door, as you were all getting ready to disapparate, telling you, with that hard grin of his, that it was time to give life hell back. And because you have always been the hesitant one, Death passed you by and only took him, and now you wait, as you always have - his Moony, his Moony who is howling brokenly in this human skin – wait, _wait for me, my love_, I will keep my promise.


	11. Theme 0: First

At the end, after more than a year, and these are the people I thank – my Kyo Baggins, who is more beautiful than she gives herself credit for; my Bacteria, who always makes everything easier, even if I don't always tell her.

And my readers, especially those who take the time to tell me what they think – them I cannot thank enough, for giving me the reason to finish when some days it is just too easy to quit. Thank you.

* * *

*****

_I'll fill your every breath with meaning,_

_And find a place that we both can hide. _

*

**0.** "Hey, how do you think things would have worked out if we had chosen to remain ghosts?"

So he had known I haven't really been reading. I pretend to be occupied for a few seconds more, staring down at the open Milton in my lap with a frown, thumbing the pages with the air of careless distractedness. He watches me patiently - I do not need to look up to know that his grey eyes are now sharp with the gentle mockery that catches all the thin light in the room, possessive and beautiful and selfish, warming his cool perse into a half-lidded smolder, that reaches into my gut and knocks me on my back, breathless as he would have liked. I take a small breath to prepare myself, releasing it such that it could pass as a sigh of exasperation, and look up into his smirking face. His left hand is tangled in his hair, the pale bone just visible in that nest of ink black feathers, and I think, _not fair_, distracted immediately and wanting to reach forward to replace his fingers with mine.

"Do you really think I wouldn't notice you watching me?"

I raise an eyebrow at his words, but do not deign to address his cocky grin, and slowly push my Milton shut. He takes my silence as a challenge and an invitation both, as I had hoped he would, and reaches to pull me towards him, such that I fall forwards, sprawling messily on my stomach and tucked into the small crook of his arm, backed against the upholstery of the sofa and the warmth of his body. He smiles at me again, no more tender than before, his grin decidedly predatory now. I roll my eyes at him, but wrap one arm around his neck, tugging him down so that I could meet his lips, cold in this silly weather that James and him had decided to play God and create.

"Did you see anything you like?" he whispers as soon as we draw apart, and I answer his question by kissing him again, a little hungrier than before, and he laughs deep in his throat, a pleasant hum that tells me he is pleased with my reply.

I time the space in between the reason of my thoughts and the breathlessness of falling into him, and pull away just when I feel my ground slip from beneath my feet, when a single star explodes in the line of my vision. He isn't smirking anymore, his cheeks flushed with the rose bloom of the thoroughly kissed, and I still my breaths, willing him to even his exhalations to keep time with mine. I lie, unmoving in his arms, the torn skeleton of our weary couch tickling the small of my back, and I am content, but thirsting. My eyes rake his face greedily - his cheeks are full again in Death as in our youth, his storm grey eyes like pools of rain water, and I imagine I can scent the wet and the hope of the squall in the shadows of his gaze, that which flickers like lightning across my own features.

He raises a hand to my cheek, his fingers splayed and searching, the hesitation in their fluttering the product of Azkaban, of losses we have only begun to learn to leave behind, now in the easiness of Death. I raise my eyes and hold his, willing him to know I see him, not clearer now that he is gloriously beautiful again, but _always_, even when he was the broken man who is still present behind his restored charm and laughter.

I turn my cheek deeper into his palm, until my lips graze his thumb, and I close my eyes, feeling the ghosts of his past fade away as his trembling fingers finally calm. I kiss the small hollow of his wrist, his pulse soothing against my neck, and he sighs, a hoarse murmur, as I seek his tattoo, _my tattoo_, with a blind clarity. I breathe lightly across and along the contours of the crescent moon, and he hisses into my ear, his back arching in the pleasure that my touch offers.

"It never would have worked," I reply presently, my eyes still closed as I move deeper into his embrace, this small space between the heat of his body and the threadbare softness of the couch like a lazy sunspot.

His hand has now moved into my hair, combing the strands absently through his fingers, lingering on the longer strands along my nape. I had come into Death with my hair untrimmed, longer than I usually keep it, but he had liked it, and it had stayed since.

"Hmm?" he asks, a small, distracted sound, as he pulls me even closer to him.

"You would never have chosen to remain behind as a ghost. You are much too brave."

My tone is decided, and my words ring with a knowing confidence, and he laughs throatily at my faith, the timbre of his humor vibrating through his lean body. I decide I like the _sensation_ of his laughter, like how I am beginning to realize one can like the _smell _of sable eyes, and fold myself tightly around the contours of his limbs. He does not complain - of course he doesn't – but takes the chance to run a hand up my sweater, his lightly calloused fingers raising anticipatory goosebumps as they dance along my bare flesh.

I squirm, trying to collect my thoughts before he can scatter them in a quick blaze of scarlet need. He laughs again, and the tremor of his body causes mine to react instinctively, and I groan, biting down on my lip as pleasure burns through my blood. I murmur what I had meant to say, breathlessly, sentences that twist themselves messily, that stumble into being, hindered by my distractions.

"You are too recklessly brave to be afraid of what comes next, and too proud to want to remain in a world that no longer wants you, not for anyone or anything. And because you wouldn't, I wouldn't too, because then we cannot be together. And that will break me, to have to wander the span of forever without you, when I know I am already broken."

A brief lull, and I listen to the echo of my honesty as it fades, whispering and sighing, into silence, as though alarmed by my undisguised and unexpected candor. But I don't speak the words heavy on my tongue, the words that push forward to spill. I don't tell him I know he would never have stayed for me, because even if he loves me, he will be true to himself first. I don't tell him I have spent nights fighting sleep, watching his namesake ignite in the summer skies, missing him enough to want him with me, and to be tearfully angry at the absence of ghosts, at the unwanted wisdom of love.

He pulls away from me, a small distance, so that he can study my expression, his eyes now cut to ribbons of indigo, narrow with thought, and with hurt. For a few fleeting seconds, I wonder if he has heard my unspoken words, as he have had on numerous occasions in all our years together. But he reads the muted anxiety in my eyes, and he swallows, allowing me to keep my secrets for now, even if it seethes like a restless itch in the silence between us.

"Do you remember fourth year in the library?"

He does not reply immediately, his brow still furrowed with his struggle to not pursue my earlier confession, and I wait patiently, my left arm now numb where it is tucked in between our bodies.

"You mean when I came out to you and everyone else within hearing distance of our table?"

He reaches to tug my arm gently free as he speaks, holding it straight against my hip as small pin pricks stab through it. I smile, both at the unapologetic indifference still evident in his tone when he discusses that day, and at his uncanny anticipation of my needs, our movements fluid and languid like a well-practiced dance.

"You didn't come out – you did that in our third year, and crudely too," I remind him, wincing a little as my arm re- familiarizes itself with blood circulation.

He snorts, a haughty sound of nonchalance, and then shrugs.

"Prongs deserved it. He had been bugging the hell out of me the entire week that year – '_Sirius, is there something you would like to tell me?_', '_Sirius, you know you are my brother and I'll still love you like the git you are irregardless of anything, right?_'".

He waves his hand in the air for dramatic air quotes as he mimics James' tone of concern, making it sound suspiciously more constipated than I remember, but I laugh anyway, mostly at the memory of his belligerent chagrin even back then.

"Where's Prongs now, anyway?"

"Terrorizing Dumbledore with more questions of here, why, life-after-death etc etc," he rolls his eyes at the ceiling, unaware of just how aristocratically imperious he looks when he is expressing his anxiety for James' sanity.

"Last I saw, Dumbledore was sneaking into some broom shed. Probably hiding from Prongs. Or arranging a rendezvous with Grindelwald.

"

I groan, and kick him feebly in the shin for that unwanted image of our ex-Professor, and my ex-employer. He turns and grins at me, all toothy and smug, as though very pleased with his own ability to mentally scar me for afterlife.

"Anyway, I wasn't referring to your coming out."

"You mean my declaration of undying love for you, then?"

His smile widens even further, and I cannot help but compare it to the expression he had worn that afternoon in the library. The four of us, together with half the school, had been studying in the library that day – it was early spring, and the exams had been close enough on our heels that even the most apathetic of students had felt its bite. He had been restive that entire afternoon, leaning back as far as the legs of his chair could support him, and then swinging forward to push himself off against the table again. He had been staring at me too, a dark, furious glower, and I had been afraid to meet his eyes.

The both of us had spent the fourth year alternating between petty arguments and rabid civility, and I had been tired, and heart weary, by the end of a howling winter. James was the only one who had paid him any mind that afternoon – like Sirius, James thought himself above studying, and was thus the only member of our quartet who could afford the distraction of attempting to decode Sirius' mulish mood. And truth be told, Peter and I both knew that James was the only one foolhardy enough to meet Sirius in one of his tempers, and the only one who could walk away relatively unscathed.

I had read the same page of my Potions textbook about twenty-five times that day – twenty-five times and not had a single word register. The silence at our table had been unbearable, even if quiet is a familiar blanket in the library, quilted and stitched zealously by Madam Pince. James had been content, or too wise, to watch Sirius without speaking that afternoon, and I had ached for the both of them to begin throwing half-hearted insults at each other, had ached for anything at all that would turn Sirius' pale grey eyes from me.

And then there had been a final slap as Sirius' chair slammed back against the table, and a whine as he dragged the chair away and stood up. When I had finally looked up, he was already leaning across the table towards me, the slate of his eyes impossibly translucent in the dim.

"You should probably know – I am in love with you, have been since the summer of our damned second year."

He had given me no time to react – a broken second in which he stared into my eyes, defiant and wild and _terrified_, and then he was gone, storming through the library and out the doors. There was a collective pause as almost everyone held their breaths, and then all hell broke loose as the Hogwarts populace debated the intentions of the Great and Dashing Sirius Black towards one Remus Lupin.

"I am ardently in love with you, my Moony, the moon to my star, the Dorian to my Henry Wotton."

I am stirred from my reverie by his obnoxious, and very loud, declarations, and blink to see him beaming at me, his lips half-curled in knowing mischief.

"That's hardly fair - you always get to be the one who corrupts."

He laughs, but his smoky eyes darken into a shade more somber, and he laces his fingers through mine again. We fall into silence together, contemplative but not discontent, and I listen to his racing pulse with the flat of my thumb, directly over the inked symbol for silver, the inked symbol of his intentions towards me.

"I stayed, after the veil, in Grimmauld Place. You could not see me though."

I startle, but his eyes are solemn, and they tell me to wait.

"I think I am glad, now, that you could not. Because I think I was trying to lure you from life, and I would have succeeded."

He knows me well.

There is guilt in the tense line of his jaw, apology in the controlled quiver of his lips. I sigh, and think of all the endings that the war has brought into our lives – an end to innocence that is essence-deep, that can only be lost with hands bloodied with blood not ours; an end to promises of forever, because one is either no longer here to honor it, or to receive it; an end to bravado and imperfect fearlessness. Sirius, who had never learnt to ask permission for the things he wants, waits now for an invitation. I remember him on my porch four years ago, a bundle of black fur and wet nose, who had remained, for nights and nights, just beyond the threshold of my door, even though it had been a cruelly sweltering summer. I had struggled to understand what he would ask of me, because he would not speak, and he refused his human form. Then one night, I understood, and had sat with him on that hardwood floor, and murmured my forgiveness just as the moon began to wane.

In another world without Voldermort and without the deaths we do not look for, he might not have asked my permission to steal me from the tattered facsimile of my life. He would not be looking at me now with those hurting eyes, pale pearl grey rimmed with an almost black ring of violet indigo, like the irises of wolves, but of a color that is wrong.

_I'd freeze us both in time_

_And find a brand new way of seeing –_

_Your eyes forever glued to mine._

But even in another world, I would still have given him my _Yes_, and would still have followed him into the dark.

I look at him steadily now, and do not look away until the hues in his stare melt into one, blending into the shallow pools of still water that will be lighted by the amber of my golden eyes. I tuck my head in the hollow of his throat, and I feel him swallow, his grip on my hand tightening.

I declare, in a whisper, and not as dramatically as he had so many years ago, that I love him.

For all its endings, the war has given us numerous firsts as well – the first of autonomy as we each struggle with the person that we are, and the person we have become in absence.

The first reunions, under the tree of our childhood, and then against the flashing dusk of life at its end.

The first of knowing we don't ever need to start over, merely continue on the page we've bookmarked with fragments of all our beginnings.

Because at the ending always comes another beginning, and it is no longer so difficult to embrace this plummet to zero, when I know we can always count forward again, and together, _always_, this time.

*

**Fin **


End file.
